Page:Winter - from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau.djvu/43

Rh crowed just as in a spring day at home. I felt the winter breaking up in me, and if I had been at home, I should have tried to write poetry. They told me that this was not a rare day there, that they had little or no winter such as we have, and it was owing to the influence of the Gulf Stream which was only sixty miles from Nantucket at the nearest, or one hundred and twenty miles from them. In mid-winter when the wind was S. E. or even S. W., they frequently had days as warm and debilitating as in summer. There is a difference of about a degree in latitude between Concord and New Bedford, but far more in climate. The American holly is quite common there, with its red berries still holding on, and is now their Christinas evergreen. I heard the larks sing strong and sweet, and saw robins. R. said that pheasants from England (where they are not indigenous) had been imported into Naushon and are now killed there.

Dec. 26, 1855. After snow, rain, and hail yesterday and last night, we have this morning quite a glaze, there being at least an inch or two of crusted snow on the ground; the most we have had. The sun comes out at 9 and lights up the ice-incrusted trees. I go to Walden via the almshouse and up the railroad. Trees seen in the west against the dark cloud, the sun shining on them, are perfectly white as